Canon BP-808, BP-809, BP-819 Batteries Review by Mallbox

The HF10 comes with one BP-809 battery. The BP-808 battery has the same capacity, but has a square-ish base rather than the neat profile of the BP-809 battery, so the BP-808 doesn't look like part of the camera when it's installed.

The BP-819 battery has twice the capacity of the BP-808 or the BP-809. The good news is that I was able to pick up a couple of BP-808 batteries at my local store that sells Canon gear. As for the Canon BP-809 or BP-819 - good luck finding them in stock. The capacity of the Canon BP-808/BP-809 is about an hour when shooting in 1920x1080. Of course my use is filmmaking, so we will shoot for 10 minutes and then break to setup the next scene, during which I power down the camera. Also, I usually expend a battery before I charge it.

I've heard that others have complained about the battery capacity of the HF10. I am guessing that these people are either leaving the camera on constantly without giving it a rest, or using it for a little while and then re-charging it before the battery is spent.

There is a separate battery charger available. But instead of investing in the charger, I bought two extra batteries. I just charge up all three batteries in the camera the day before a shoot and I'm good for 3 hours of shooting. In an eight hour day we usually don't shoot more than 3 hours of actual record time anyway, with breaks, setups, teardowns, and blocking.

by mallbox
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